Peggy Barnhardt: Are you getting the old heave-ho?
Published 12:00 am Sunday, November 11, 2018
Do you have a family doctor that is inaccessible? When you call to make an appointment do you get the all booked message? Do they then try to relegate you to a nurse practitioner or a physician’s assistant, with the less than convincing argument that they are exactly the same? This seems to be a current shared experience. If you accept the alternate I wonder does the insurance company know that you are not being seen by the doctor when they pay the claim and do you realize you are paying Doctor’s prices for fewer competencies: Champagne prices for Jack Daniels.
Does the office of your health care professional post a sign that says, that
if you are 15 minutes late you will have to reschedule or a missed appointment without a twenty-four hour notice may incur a bill all the same, while you may sit for a hour waiting to be seen, an obvious missed appointment on the doctors part .Do they try to enlist your signature in agreement with these practices .Do you read the papers in total that are put before you or are they glossed over with minimal explanation by a person standing there with bated breath, pen in extended hand towards you, intimidating BODY LANGUAGE, implying that you must sign.
Well you can just say No. As I recently did in several of the scenarios I mentioned above. While their expressions denoted surprise and discomfort, as railing against the grain would, we both lived to tell about it.
First off you need to become informed; While Physicians Assistants and Nurse Practitioners are trained professionals, there is a difference in the length of training, the focus, the pay scale and the supervision. The big thumbs up I found, that I wasn’t aware of, is that the physician’s assistants receive lots of continued training and are regularly retested possibly keeping them better abreast of innovations, something a sick person really wants and needs.
You need to take responsibility for your medical choices, by reading thoroughly any and everything before you sign it. You might find that by signing you are giving up rights and options, most of the hoards of paperwork are for the protection of the submitter not you. It may be shrouded in unfamiliar terminology, ask questions. If you don’t like the unrelenting round-robin of service attendants when you go to your doctor’s office make it known. You chose your family physician because of his expertise and probably his personality, you didn’t choose his team. He was known as the family doctor because he literally cared for the family: oh his title has changed too. He is now called the primary physician, a term completely devoid of intimacy and predisposes assuredly that you will be referred to other doctors for everything excluding shots and a cold, simply speaking. Sad but true, things have changed, but there is still some remnant of authority in the power of the unequivocal “No.
Think about it.
Reference; PhyscianAssistance Edu.org